


In the Wake of Adversity

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-07
Updated: 2005-12-07
Packaged: 2019-01-19 14:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12411774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: It was a most human condition, fearing, hating, disdaining those who were unique, those who were different.It was also a most human failing, turning one’s anxieties and insecurities outward.





	In the Wake of Adversity

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**Title:** In the Wake of Adversity  
 **Author:** **_carondelet_** // **_carondelet11_**  
 **Character(s) / Pairing:** Harry Potter  
 **Rating:** PG-13 (adult situations; language; violence; angst)  
 **Notes:** originally published 01 August 2005 \\\ 1250 || submitted to the LiveJournal community **darkones** for their _Knockturn Noir ~ Forbidden Things Challenge_ ; thanks to _traceria_ , _ladybluestar_ , and _ronin10_ on LJ for their read-throughs of this  
 **Word Count:** 5,071  
 **Spoilers:** Books 1-6  
 **Warnings:** spoilers for  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince  
 **Summary:** It was a most human condition, fearing, hating, disdaining those who were unique, those who were different. It was also a most human failing, turning one’s anxieties and insecurities outward.  
 **Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters, settings, and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling as published by, including and not limited, to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. The use of these characters and settings is for entertainment purposes only; no infringement is intended or should be inferred.

 

**___________________________________________**

**IN THE WAKE OF ADVERSITY**

[] ...FOR WE ARE THE GODS OF ANTIPATHY

**___________________________________________**

 

**It had been** some time since he last stepped foot into the office.

He still thought of it as Professor Lupin’s office. It was still his. His presence, his knowledge, it lent the air a certain weight, a gravitas. He had left his mark upon the students, the school, the very fabric of the space he had occupied in his short tenure. The fraudulent Moody, the bitch Umbridge, and the traitor Snape all be damned, it was and would ever be Remus J. Lupin’s office. It should have been his office. It would have been, if not for the greasy git’s braying like the ass he was. Snape let slip that Lupin was a werewolf and that was that. The inglorious end of the career of one of the bravest and kindest men that Harry Potter had ever known, the best Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher that the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had seen in ages.

It was typical of Wizarding-kind, typical of Muggle-kind. It was a most human condition, fearing, hating, disdaining those who were unique, those who were different. It was also a most human failing, turning one’s anxieties and insecurities outward. Protection by the way of deflection, he supposed. It was not lost on Harry that the leader of the Death Eaters, their Dark Lord Voldemort, was one of their loathed Mudbloods. How better to prove himself and to shield his suspect heritage than to scream for the blood of those just like him?

That Severus Snape, another Death Eater, another Mudblood, would do the same to Remus Lupin should not have come as a surprise to Harry. And yet it did, and Harry laid the blame at the feet of his innocence. Despite all that he had seen and experienced, his innocence still clung to him. His innocence made him blind to the fact that Snape would give up Lupin for being a werewolf.

He would never forgive Snape for that transgression. He would never forgive Snape for many things. The list grew by the day.

He stood on the threshold, slightly swaying. The trunk had remained in the office despite the procession of Dark Arts professors who had come after Lupin. He could see it, appropriately tucked into a poorly lit corner, books stacked upon the lid. He put a hand to the doorframe, feeling the battered wood and the rough hewn stone beyond with his fingertips, utilising his sense of touch to ground him in reality. It was too easy to surrender to his memories; the mere thought of the Second Wizarding War drove many to hide, momentarily, permanently, in diversions. Firewhiskey. Absinthe. Sex. Scars. Cruelty. Muggle pursuits of heroin and cocaine and marijuana. Fantasies and delusions. Denial. Anything and everything that would dull the hurt, hide the pain, keep the screams from one’s ears, remove the sight of blood from one’s hands, replace the scent of death.

“How foolish we have become,”� Harry intoned softly, his body still gently swaying. There was something to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom that had a slightly off-putting quality. Certainly some of its disorienting ambiance was courtesy of the Dark Arts artefacts housed within. The hexes and curses practiced for centuries between the dingy walls had to leave some mark upon the area. But on this day, Harry credited his exhaustion and the memories of the professors who had come and gone to his sense of dislocation.

There was also the reason for his being in the classroom.

_The trunk._

He closed his eyes, exhaled slowly, and finally released his grip on the doorframe. He strode toward the desk in the middle of the office, stopping when he felt it near, and stood motionless. His eyes remained closed.

He heard the trunk shift slightly, the sound of wood groaning and metal stretching, the locks clattering, the books sighing as they slid.

_So. It was still there._

“Good,”� he said. The side of his mouth quirked into a smile.

Harry opened his eyes and regarded the trunk with a look that was almost fondness. He walked around the desk, his fingers dancing across the desktop, leaving patterns in the layer of dust that had accumulated. Swirls, ribbons, shapes that seemed like stars were left in his wake.

He came to stand before the trunk. He slipped his hands into his pockets and waited.

The trunk favoured him with a hop. The books stacked upon the lid were sent spilling down onto the stone floor, a plume of dust billowing into the air as a result. Harry watched it in detached amusement. The cloud slowly rose, curling underneath itself, and then began to dissipate. He watched as the drafts of the ancient castle seized the cloud and sent it racing toward the ceiling. He followed it as far as the crossbeams and then redirected his attention to the trunk. It thumped against the floor again, locks chattering at him.

“I know,”� he said to the trunk. “I know.”�

Harry withdrew his hands from his pockets and reached for his wand. He flicked it at the trunk and murmured, “ _Wingardium Leviosa_.”� He smiled as he manoeuvred the trunk out of the office and into the classroom. That was how it began, after all; an eleven year old who was raised by Muggles with no idea of his history and a raffish red-haired Pureblood being corrected by a swotty young witch with bushy hair. That was who they were back then. Harry, Ron, and Hermione. The Trio. They had practically been together from the first moment. If not for Ron’s mockery of Hermione’s didactic advice in that First Year Charms class… their saving her from the troll…

How different would things be?

“No.”� Harry shook his head to clear it and set the trunk down in the centre of the floor. “No more what ifs. No more should have. No more could have.”� He charily glanced at the trunk before him. “No more.”�

With a flick of his wand, he unbolted the locks to Professor Lupin’s old chest, one that Harry had not seen in four years, and took a step back.

“There is only what is now,”� he whispered.

The top of the trunk opened slightly, creating a thin line between the body and the lip. Slowly, very slowly, the top moved higher and higher, gradually revealing the contents. As the lid progressed, Harry could see black fabric, bundled, draped, around an indistinct figure. It appeared to be roughly human in shape. The top of the trunk was nearly in its open position. The shape within the trunk straightened from the crouch it had been forced to assume to fit in the wooden box.

Harry watched as the robes slipped into place, observed the figure assume its posture, saw the black hair above the collar and the pale hands beneath the cuffs of the robes. Watched as the figure turned round inside of the trunk. Noted the House crest above the left breast on the robe, the House tie. Viewed the lips that twitched into a smirk. The green eyes that blinked back at him from behind round, black spectacles. The lighting shaped scar on the right side of the forehead.

“Hello,”� said Harry to the boggart.

The smirk broadened into a grin. “You’re not surprised,”� his twin replied.

“No,”� answered the original, “I’m not.”�

“That’s good. That’s very good.”� The boggart with Harry’s face and body stepped out of the trunk and took an appraising glance round the classroom. “It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen this place.”� He gave Harry a bemused look. “Back then, the only thing you were afraid of was fear itself.”�

Harry began to slowly walk a path unseen, one that traced the edges of the room. “And now?”� he queried in an undertone.

His reflected self spread his arms from his sides and laughed. “Well, just look at me. Us. Me.”� He dropped his arms and directed a familiar index finger at Harry and waggled it at him. “You’ve got one hell of an ego, mate.”�

Harry snorted at the comment. “You must be ego dystonic, then.”� He continued his transit around the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.

The boggart clasped his hands to his chest in mimicry of pain. “What a terrible thing to say to yourself. I’m wounded, I am.”� The boggart slipped out of pose and levelled a predatory look at the wizard. “You learned that from her.”�

Harry didn’t pause, but there was the barest stutter to his step when he heard the word _her_. “I learned many things from her,”� he stated evenly.

His boggart likeness titled his head. “She is a weakness.”�

“Don’t.”�

The boggart folded his arms across his robes, partially obscuring the embroidered Gryffindor shield. “Anyone that you care about is a weakness. You know that.”�

Harry sucked a sharp breath between grit teeth and looked up and ahead of him. His eyes flicked from bookshelf to arcane artefact to window in rapid succession. “They are my greatest strength,”� he replied. There was no sign of anger in his voice, but he had issued the response with his fists clenched.

“Ah, yes, your greatest strength. Love.”� In a swift motion, one that prompted Harry to draw his wand, the other Harry spun and kicked the lid of the trunk closed. Smirking at himself, the other Harry sat down upon the trunk, one leg crossed over the other. “The old man went on and on about that in his last days, didn’t he? There was all that twaddle about Riddle and his cocked up childhood, the prophecy being rubbish, and all of that talk about love.”� He turned his head so that he could arch an eyebrow at Harry. “Couldn’t he have taught you something useful? Like Occlumency? Or Legilimency? It’s not as though Riddle is simply going to stop his little excursions into your mind. Just because you don’t feel him scratching at your mental doors doesn’t mean that he’s not there.”�

“I know,”� said Harry. He kept an even pace as he walked the classroom. The wand was still in his hand.

The other Harry snickered and shook his head. “So, did he convince you that this love business is going to save you? Save all of Wizarding and Muggle kind?”�

Harry didn’t answer. He looked down at the floor and continued pacing.

“I didn’t think so.”� The boggart leaned back on the trunk, his hands folded on his chest, both feet on the floor. He stared at the ceiling. “The old man said that love is what saved you. Us. That the love of your mother, our mother, is what kept Riddle from killing you. Me. Us.”� He hissed and knitted his hands behind his head. “Couldn’t you have made me into a Dementor again? This is really a pain in the arse. The possessive tenses alone are making me barmy.”�

“Like you said earlier, I have one hell of an ego,”� Harry stated dryly. “You were talking about love.”�

“To the point. We never were much for idle chatter. Right, then. Love. All we need is love. Cracking song, not so much a brilliant military stratagem. We **are** in the middle of a bloody war. Love has bugger all to do with that.”�

“Why do you say that?”� asked Harry.

“Well, honestly, look at what love has done. Got our parents killed. Got Nev’s parents locked up in St. Mungo’s. Got Cedric killed —”� When Harry made to interject, his boggart self raised a hand in the air. “Come now, his heart and nobility and caring got him slain by Riddle. You can’t deny that those are components of love.”�

“Your logic is still off,”� Harry countered with a wave of his hand. He stopped walking and leaned against the lectern at the head of the class.

“I’m a boggart that’s been locked in a bloody trunk for four years. Your head would be a bit muddled as well if you were me. Or if I were you. Or if we were all together.”�

“Goob-goob-g’joob,”� he half-sang, an awkward smile on his lips.

“Ah, there, that’s brilliant!”� his other laughed. “You can still take the piss. This war hasn’t killed you.”�

“Not yet.”�

“Hmm, no. That’s rather the point of the war, isn’t it, you dying?”�

“So now I’m you and you’re not? Never thought I’d see a literal example of self-preservation. Well, I suppose that it is the point of the war.”� Harry lowered his gaze and sighed. “That it’s all it ever was. About my death and his life.”�

The boggart snorted. “Some life he’s got. Surrounded by sycophants and traitors and the insane.”�

“Better him than me.”�

“Oh, really?”� The other Harry barked out a sharp laugh and shifted position to recline on one arm. He smirked at Harry, a strange glint in the famous green eyes. “You’re not surrounded by sycophants or traitors or the insane?”�

Harry propped his arms onto the lectern and blinked at the boggart. “Go on, then. You mean to say it, so, out with it.”�

The other Harry grinned. “Your friends. The ones who call you friend and you view as friend in return. They’re not the same category as Riddle’s coterie?”�

“Of course they’re not.”� He gave the boggart a scathing look. “You need to practice sounding like me. You might have my voice, but I would never use a posh word like ‘coterie’.”�

The boggart pulled a face. “If you are going to be like that, fine, your lot aren’t the same as his?”�

“No, as I already said, they’re not.”�

“Loony Lovegood, Creepy Creevey and Weasel Bee aren’t comparable?”�

“You were locked up in that trunk for too long. Or maybe not long enough. I don’t see the bloody comparison.”�

“You have to admit, there’s something a bit off with Lovegood. She’s more than touched. Creevey is the biggest sycophant walking England’s blessed shores, man. You can’t possibly deny that. And Weasley Is Our King? How many times have his little jealousies got in the way of your friendship?”� The other Harry snickered. “You’re more delusional than Riddle, mate.”�

Harry rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe I’m listening to you.”�

The boggart shrugged. “I’m only saying the things you won’t let slip past your lips.”� He sat up and crossed his legs on top of the trunk. “That Harry Potter, always such a nice lad. Even though his uncle and auntie and Ickle Diddykins treated him like the arse end of a House elf, he was always polite.”� Then the other Harry laughed. “‘Cept for that time you made Marge large.”� He grinned. “That wasn’t very nice of you.”�

Harry narrowed his eyes at the memory of her boorish comments. “She deserved it.”�

“Oh, yeah, I’m not arguing that point. I mean, her hectoring about how our dad was a shiftless drunk and how our mum was a bitch…”�

There was a sudden, stiff breeze in the classroom, one that sent the shutters clapping loudly. The air whipped around the room, sending loose papers and pages flying. The doors to the classroom popped open and then the wind was gone with a slam.

The other Harry looked from the closed doors to Harry, who was breathing rapidly. His hands clutched the edges of the lectern, the knuckles white.

“Still pisses us off, I see.”�

“ **You** don’t seem to be bothered,”� Harry snapped.

The smirk appeared again. “Hmm. No. I don’t.”�

Harry let slip a noise of disgust and stalked over to the classroom doors. “Why in the hell am I talking to you?”�

His twin shrugged, palms upturned. “Dunno, mate. You felt the need to talk to yourself, but feel better doing it literally?”�

Harry stopped and turned to stare at him, eyes wide. “You’re mad.”�

“I’m a boggart.”� The other Harry gave him another feral look. “I’m just a reflection of your worst fear.”�

The room fell silent as Harry stared at the boggart. The statement hung in the air between them. _I’m just a reflection of your worst fear._

The boggart wore his features, spoke with his voice, walked with his pace.

Moved to action, Harry scowled and continued toward the doors. “I don’t know why in the hell I came here,”� he muttered. “I don’t know what I thought I would gain.”�

“Don’t you?”� The other Harry swung his legs round and leapt off the trunk. He outpaced Harry and stood between him and the doors. “I think you know why you came here. I think I know why you came here.”� He leaned in close, as close as was possible without skin touching skin, and whispered, “Why don’t you get on with it?”�

“Get on with what?”� Harry bit off.

The expression on the other Harry hardened into a mask of contempt. “You know.”�

“What if I don’t?”�

“Bollocks.”� The boggart gave Harry a shove that sent him stumbling backwards. “You do know. So get on with it.”�

Harry regained his balance and glared at himself. “I don’t know what you mean.”�

“Of course you do, it’s the only reason why you came back to this school, to this classroom.”� The other Harry made a feint toward him.

Harry jumped away and out of reach. “You don’t know why I came back here.”�

“You wanted to find me.”�

Harry laughed, a brittle, painful sound. “What the bloody hell do you know?”�

“I know that you’re mad, you’re angry, you’re so full of hate you can hardly feel. Love being your saving grace… how can it be when you have become inured to it? You loved your parents. They were murdered. You loved Sirius. He was killed. You loved your friends–”�

“Shut it. You don’t know anything about it. You’ve been locked in a bloody trunk for the last four years and you are a boggart. You don’t know about it.”� Harry turned his back, his hands curled into tight balls, his eyes wide and unseeing.

The other Harry circled round to see his face, his expression one not unlike that of sated hunger. “You loved your friends and they were hurt. Neville, Hermione, Ron, Luna, they were hurt because of you.”�

“Shut it,”� Harry repeated savagely.

The other Harry smirked. “You loved Dumbledore and Snape killed him.”�

“Don’t talk to me about that.”�

“Where was this great power of love then? Why didn’t it save Dumbledore? Why didn’t it stop Snape from killing him?”�

“Snape’s a traitorous bastard. A traitorous, lying, murdering son of a bitch. He should never have been trusted.”�

“But he was. Dumbledore stood by him, unfailing. To the end. To his end.”�

“He just… he was wrong…”� faltered Harry, avoiding the other’s gaze.

The boggart closed the distance and kept moving so that he remained in Harry’s view. “He was wrong. Love didn’t save Dumbledore because love is what killed him.”� The other Harry nodded at him. “Just like love put Ginny into St. Mungo’s.”�

“Voldemort did that,”� he ground out, his hands opening and closing stiffly.

“Did he now? It was all Voldemort’s fault, that?”�

“Of course it was.”�

The other Harry sneered and chuckled, “Well, it seems to me that Riddle was quite done with dear Ginerva. Done, that is, until you for some unholy reason decided you fancied her.”� He made to dart away as Harry lashed out to strike him. “There’s no need for that… or, wait, perhaps there is?”�

“There is a need for you to shut it,”� spat Harry, as he again reached for the boggart.

He easily danced away, laughing as he did so. “Have you ever thought about what your love will do to your two best friends? Will do to the man who used to teach in this classroom? What love will do to them all? Of course you have. That’s why you’re here!”� Their endless circling of the room and of one another had reversed their positions. The boggart rushed forward and slammed Harry against the classroom doors. He held a forearm loosely to Harry’s neck. “Admit it.”�

Harry struggled to breathe and gasped, “No, I won’t.”�

“Do it.”� The other Harry punctuated the statement by knocking him into the doors again.

“No.”� Harry moved his arms to block the boggart and to relieve the stress of the attack from his body.

The other Harry cocked his head to one side and leaned in intimately close to Harry. “If you don’t… you know that Hermione will be next in the ward, lying next to Ginny, don’t you?”�

“She won’t be,”� he whispered, the strength draining from his limbs.

The boggart moved his head in the opposite direction, his gaze fixed to Harry’s. “That’s how it always is in the end, Harry. Love hurts. Love kills. It’s done that to everyone in your life, everyone who ever had meaning. Hermione is next in the line. Her time is soon coming.”�

“Stop it,”� he mumbled, turning his face away.

“Make me stop,”� his voice countered.

“How…?”�

In his ear, in the softest of tones, he heard himself say, “You know how.”�

From the way in which his body sagged, his will seemed to crumble beneath him like the sand giving way to the sea. Visibly near breaking, Harry choked back a sob. “But… I can’t.”�

“Coward,”� his mirror whispered.

“I am.”�

“No. You are not.”� The other Harry, the boggart, took Harry’s face in his hands and turned him so that he would face him. “You are not a coward, Harry. We both know that isn’t true.”�

Harry shut his eyes. “But I am.”�

“You always were given to self-doubt, but this is bordering on ridiculous, if you’ll pardon the double pun.”� The smile that had flickered onto the other Harry’s face slipped away. “Do what you came here to do.”�

“No.”�

“Do it, Potter.”� The other Harry gave him a push.

Harry glared back at him. “No.”�

The other Harry leered at him and said, “Make me stop, then.”� He smirked. “Save Hermione. Save Ron. Save all of your friends. Just get on with it already.”�

“No, no, I won’t. I can’t.”�

“Then you’ve killed them.”�

“No, I don’t believe you!”�

“Yes, you do, or else you wouldn’t be here arguing with yourself!”�

“Stop it!”� Harry took a swing at himself and connected, fist against chin. The other Harry was sent sprawling. There was a momentary look of shock on his features; then he began to laugh.

“You’ll have to do better than that to save them, Potter!”� he chortled, wiping a fleck of blood from the crease of his lips.

“I’m doing everything that I can.”�

“No, you’re not.”� The other Harry clambered to his feet, gingerly touching his lips. “Maybe you are a coward after all. A silly little boy who believes in an old man’s silly little tales. A silly little boy who is content to sit back and watch as his friends are taken from him one by one.”� The other Harry giggled. “A silly little boy who is going to lose one of his best friends, one of his greatest champions, to a lie called love.”� He nodded. “It’s going to kill her, you know.”� He paused and nodded again. “You’ll be the death of her.”�

“ENOUGH!”� Harry ran from the doorway and tackled the boggart headlong. Both were sent sliding across the classroom floor.

The other Harry rolled over, off of his back and onto his knees. He came to a standing position just as Harry had scrambled to his feet. He attacked the boggart again and both went tumbling. They rolled over and over on the dust-covered floor, coughing and choking on the years of neglect. Legs kicking, arms flailing, hands punching, they paused when they collided with the trunk. The wood and metal ground against the stone blocks, halting the action momentarily.

Harry stared at Harry. Their hair was askew, their glasses sat awkwardly on their noses, their eyes were wide, and their cheeks flushed with anger. Harry sat on Harry’s chest, staring at him with obvious hatred.

“You know I’m right.”�

“You’re not.”�

“You know why you are here.”�

“I don’t.”�

Harry smiled and made a move for the wand pocket of Harry’s robes. Harry knocked his arms out of the way and reached down to take Harry by the throat.

“You… know why… you are here,”� he croaked, the smile still on his face.

“Shut it,”� he growled, his grip tightening.

“You… know…”�

“No,”� he hissed, his teeth clenched, his eyes stinging.

The other Harry’s face constricted as his hands constricted. His face was flush, his eyes bright green. Tears rolled freely from his eyes, tracing glittering lines down the sides of his face. “You… can’t kill… yourself… but… you can… kill me…”�

“NO!”� Harry gasped. As his tears fell, he reached for his wand and pointed it at his corporeal reflection, one hand still on his neck. “That’s not… no… I am not… God, I hate you!”�

“You don’t want… Riddle to kill you,”� the other Harry coughed, “but you… do want to… die.”�

“No…”�

“Do it.”�

Harry shook his head mutely.

“Do it,”� the other Harry wheezed. Harry shook his head in a negative again. The other clasped both wrists, keeping the wand on him and Harry’s hand on his throat. “Kill me. Kill yourself. End it. Do the thing that you want to do… that you have meant to do… and do it now. Kill me. Sacrifice me… for you.”�

Harry stared into his eyes, green eyes, the eyes that were the eyes of his mother and held the wand so tightly in his hand that it appeared as though it might snap. His body trembled, his muscles shaking with adrenaline and emotion. He stared into his eyes, placed the wand directly in front of his face and — 

He pulled away from the other’s grasp and let the wand fall from his hand. It clattered against the stones as Harry climbed off of the other Harry and fell to the floor in a sobbing heap. “I can’t…”�

The other Harry lay still, his chest heaving as he answered huskily, “I… know.”�

“I can’t. I don’t… I don’t want… to kill myself,”� he cried into the dust.

“I know,”� the other Harry said thickly.

They lay in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, one wracked by sobs, the other struggling to breathe, both battered and bloodied and bruised and torn. They lay in the dust, faces covered in tears. They lay in a companionable silence, the Boy Who Lived and the boggart who wore his face.

When the tears subsided, Harry lolled onto his side and watched the face of the other Harry carefully. “I don’t want to kill myself. It won’t make him stop. It won’t save Hermione. It won’t make things better for Ron.”� He drew in a shuddering gasp. “It won’t make anything better.”�

His face turned and blinked back at him. “No… it won’t make anything better,”� he said faintly.

Harry swallowed with difficulty and asked, “What happens next?”�

The other Harry smiled and, for the first time, it seemed to be sincere. “I don’t know.”�

“We say that a lot,”� Harry laughed.

“Yes, we do,”� the other Harry replied, coughing as he did so. Silence filled the classroom again, both staring at the other. “I should go back in the trunk?”� asked the boggart. There was a look on his face, Harry’s face, one that seemed to be that of trepidation, or fear. The same tone was in his voice. Harry’s voice.

Harry shook his head. “No,”� he replied, “I don’t think you have to do that.”�

His twin blinked, obviously confused. “So… I’m free?”�

“If that is what you want.”�

The boggart thought on the matter for several moments before his brow creased. “What about you?”� He coughed.

“How do you mean?”�

“Are you free?”�

Harry began to answer but stopped. He sighed. “I think I might be. At least I think I am freer than before I came here.”�

“I would hope so.”� The boggart looked down at his form. “I still frighten me, though. I still look like me.”�

“You mean you look like me.”�

“Yeah.”�

Harry struggled to his feet and helped the other to his. They stood and regarded one another, foreheads creased into frowns, breathing slowing to normal. The other Harry reached out and straightened Harry’s tie. Harry murmured, “ _Accio_ wand,”� and then directed it at the other Harry’s spectacles. “ _Occulus reparum_.”�

“You finally got round to learning that,”� the other Harry said by way of thanks.

“She said it often enough,”� he shrugged in response.

They stood facing one another, the air thick with dust and exertion and regret and memory and innocence abandoned. Much had been given in that classroom, as a result of that post. Instructors fell to the wayside year after year. Possessed, incompetent, counterfeit, ignorant, beyond the pale. All of no remark save one, the one who had shown Harry a different path. A lighter path.

Would _he_ have understood the reason for Harry’s return?

Harry straightened his back and nodded to his mirror image. “Can I ask a favour?”�

His face blinked and his shoulders shrugged. “A favour? I suppose.”�

“Stay here.”�

“Here?”�

“At Hogwarts. Stay at Hogwarts. Don’t leave.”�

“Where would I have gone to?”�

“No idea. But I would like for you to stay.”�

His eyes narrowed at him. “You know that in time I won’t have your face. Your voice. In time I’ll return to the vulgarity that I truly am.”�

“Yes, I realise this.”�

“Then why…?”�

Harry spun on one heel and opened the classroom door. He stepped through and walked into the corridor beyond. He paused and faced the other Harry. “This was my home. I’d…like to think that, in a way, I’m still here.”� He raised a hand to stop the boggart from contradicting him. “I know when I walk off what exists of me in you will fade away. But…”� He struggled and then finally said, “I need my delusions. Do you understand? I **need** to believe.”�

The other Harry swallowed and nodded.

They looked at one another for a moment, then Harry walked away from the former Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom and into the abandoned school, leaving the puzzled image of his fear behind him.

 

**”**


End file.
